


Retrograde

by Punk_in_Docs



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Boyfriends, Brain Damage, Brain Injury, Brotherly Affection, Car Accidents, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Family Issues, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Girlfriends - Freeform, Hospitals, Inspired by 'Me before You' slightly, Life Partners, Me Before You - AU fic, Memory Loss, Mental Anguish, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Not Married Couple, Physical Therapy, Platonic Soulmates, Post - accident fic, Post Traumatic Amnesia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad, Sisters, Trauma, brother, hit and run
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-07 13:41:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10361706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punk_in_Docs/pseuds/Punk_in_Docs
Summary: Thomas Wickers loved three things in his enviable life; he loved his girlfriend, he loved his job, and he loved his insatiable appetite for joy, adrenaline and adventure. Or atleast, he did, until the day of the accident.Jasper Jones, learns what it is to live with a man who doesn't even know who she is anymore. He can't remember her face, her laugh, or their love. She is in agony watching the man she loves struggle with living his new, dependent life. Will she ever get him back? Will he ever, one day, remember her?





	1. Blessed?

 

 

Thomas Wickers loved three things in his enviable life; he loved his girlfriend, he loved his job, and he loved his insatiable appetite for joy, adrenaline and adventure.

Tackling aforesaid list in chronological order, he loved his girlfriend, because there wasn’t a man alive who could _resist_ falling mad in all consuming love with Jasper Jones. She was bubbly, bright, more than _slightly_ mad, and positively perfect. The sun didn’t shine as bright as she could. She likes odd, little. things that he would never be able to understand. The scratch and fuzzy depths of garishly coloured, baggy, wool jumpers, and stripy, bobbly old socks. She sings, much to his distress, loudly, and off key to bad indie songs on the radio, uncaring if anyone hears her. She collected woodland animal mugs, and was obssessed with tea, Nancy Meyer films, and all of Jane Austen's works.

She’s the type of girl who would stomp around in chunky boots, and drink pint after pint of bitter when they went to the pub. And differing to that, she liked snuggling under a wool blanket on their sofa and having a good cry at heart wrenching rom coms. She is his walking contradiction. With wild, gaudy, tangled hair, and that sweet ruddy, round, freckly face, and eyes so blue they could make the indian ocean jealous. She had an inability to hide anything she felt, her personality was as warm as her _big, soft_ heart.

Thomas loved her from the second he saw her sunny smile. They had met a magical decade ago, when touring historical sites of interest in the middle of nowhere, with his parents, on some god awful rainy bank holiday, with the grey skies outside drizzling that morose english rain on them as they trudged around the ruins of some castle that Mr. Wickers Senior was enraptured by.

The only solace was fleeing into the chocolate box village, seeing the warm window of the dry little bakery that offered shelter from the attacking rain. Shaking off their _‘anoracks’_ , as his mother called them, his hair was dripping, his shoes sodden, he couldn’t feel his cold, numb hands, and he lumbered up to the counter, and peered over the mounds of fat, golden, homemade, slabs of cake sat in front of him caged in glass domes, idly wondering whether or not there was any chance of something a _little stronger_ than tea, which the establishment seemed to think could be served in nothing else but a chipped, flowery teapot, which was coincidentally, apart from the coffee (that was deceptively _, criminally,_ the same colour as the tea) the _only thing_ the café seemed to offer, and then when the waitress popped up from somewhere to serve him, he found himself looking into those, big, beautiful eyes of hers. 

Wondering why, _on earth_ , someone who worked in a café that would have made Mary Berry _wretch_ \- with its positively saccharine wallpaper and gaudy, rose petal teacups - was wearing a ripped, Billy Idol t-shirt and scarily studded boots which looked lethal. Considering that the average age of her customers where all aged seventy, and who couldn’t finish a whole scone to themselves. He had wondered if she was in the right place of work, but then she surprised him with how her smile was so addictive to look at, and all the old pensioners knew her name and seemed to adore her.

That was Jasper all over. She deflected and flounced out of every judgement people made about her. He could live for a hundred years by her side, and still never have her pegged.

After three scones and two pots of widdly weak tea, he finally got up the courage to ask her name and number, and the rest, as they say, just all fell into place after that.

By some stroke of fate, she ended up attending University in London, where he lived and worked. He is tipped as one of the most successful editors in the world of books. Heading a top brass job at Random house publishing, with a trendy bachelors pad in Notting Hill, worth the vast fortune he worked hard to earn. She went to University to read Literature, and they lived and loved in harmonious joy, in their townhouse, the happiest couple all their friends knew, and envied.

They felt like the toast of London town, after she graduated with a first and honours, and found a cozy job co-owning a bookshop on Portabello road with a pair of fabulous, hard-core, feminist lesbians. They had normal, working weeks, coming home to each other at the end of the day, that suited them down to the ground. They had a dog, a comfy, great home, jobs that thrilled them, and a life that was _impossibly_ happy, both to the inhabitants of it, and to everyone looking in, who knew them.

They spent their weekends book reading, love-making, dog walking, going for artisinal lattes in all the groovy hipster places that cropped up in _damn_ near every street near where they lived. They went tango dancing at small, loud little spanish tavernas, down unknown side streets. Attended art galleries to look at confusing, modern pieces that they _didn’t understand._ Explored every bit of greenery in London, visited museums like the brainy, book loving nerds they were, and took long weekend trips to either one of their country dwelling parents when it suited them. They were blessed. _They knew this well._

Thomas loves Jasper, _wholly_. So wholly it sometimes makes his _chest physically ache_. And she became as thick as thieves with every single one of his mad, family members, and she didn’t have to even try to get them to love her – thus the basis of her appeal, everyone loved her. Her gaudy, tomboyish, smiley charms won them over _quickly_. His mother, his father, his brother, Daryl, and his lovely wife, Millie, and the little Wickers that was pending, due to arrive soon, all loved her almost as _fiercely_ as _he_ did. Daryl lived near his parents, in Hampshire, he was a tree surgeon, and had a few years on his sparky younger brother, who was definitely the brains of the family, where Daryl was the brawns. Jasper came from an _equally_ as insane family, she had a sister, who was going out with a posh, scottish bloke up near perth, he owned a distillery. Her mother was a dippy art school teacher, but she had a heart of gold. The Jones family had the misfortune to lose Mr Jones, four years ago, to the carniverous tenacity that was lung cancer.

They had a rare old time, together. _They truly did._ He liked holding her in his arms when they danced around the bedroom to scratchy, old vinyls, on his battered, red leather, record player that he’d carted with him from his university days. The first time they both lost their virtues to each other, that record player provided the soundtrack in the corner of his bedroom. Blaring out ‘Fade to Grey’ by Visage as two teens nervously found ecstasy and sex for the first time, fumbling about under his comic book bed clothes.

He liked holding her in his arms when they sway and chuckle together, walking home from the pub, three sheets to the wind. He loves nuzzling a grin into her neck, when she was stood cooking or reading, she _always_ smelled fantastic. _Without fail._ He likes stupid things about their relationship too. Like seeing both their dressing gowns hung up on the back of the bathroom door, their toothbrushes twinned in the same jar, both pairs of dog chewed slippers against the skirting board in the bedroom. He _liked_  that she didn’t know what Quinoa was, or how to spell it. She hated celery – _just because_. She was always ready to make him laugh at stupid, goofy things. And he was positive that if there was anyone living or dead who came close to being the perfect human being – she would win the trophy _hands down._ He’d told her that once. And she had laughed that big, fantastic toothy grin, and said she’d accept, _only on_ the provision it came with a sash, a sceptre and a crown.

So. _There it was_. The merry story of his blessed life. His great job, his home, and the woman who made all of the above worth being alive for. And he was content to think of what lay ahead of him, for him and his Jasper. One day, maybe one day _soon_ , he’d end all those years of them merely being roommates and Beaus, and slip that, much awaited jewelled ring on her left hand (both their mothers had nudged elbows into ribs so many times in asking that he'd lost count now) They’d have a quirky, country wedding. And after that, _maybe_ the pitter patter of tiny feet could be soon to be heard in the Wickers London residence.

He leaves work, one fine Friday evening, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, satchel on one shoulder and his jacket in his hands. It was the sticky, warm, ochre, evening sunshine that was making him so flushed and warm. He loved the heat and inescapable buzz of welcoming summer that drenched London. Every street and every park ripe with it. He looked up at the familiar building skyline of the high rise structures near the office. And he strides his lanky, leggy way across the pavement, fumbling for his ringing phone in his pocket as he tugged it out, and answered the call, holding up a thanking hand to the taxi that just stopped to let him sprint across the road. Stepping into another lane of traffic, one that was in his blind spot.

One that would, shortly, cost him more than he could ever know.

“ _Daryl? yeah,_ Hi… hang on, I’m out of work now, just crossing the-“

Whatever he had been about to say. He isn’t able to finish.

He doesn’t feel much at first, but theres a defeaning, blinding, searing hot pain that takes him over completely. He feels his body jolt, and his stomach spins, and he wants to scream, to cry, to be sick. His phone flies from his hand, his knees give way. But he doesn’t make a noise. _Not a one_. Horns start to blare about the street, people gasp in horror at seeing his shattered, broken body prostrate across the, now blood stained, tarmac. The last thing he remembers in the ochre sunshine blaze, and the familiar windows of the office high above, splitting his head open before he closes his eyes.

Now he can taste nothing but the coppery tang of blood, and the gritty, moist, sickly, urban smell of asphalt seeps heavily, like tar, into his senses.

Thomas Wickers loved three things in his enviable life; or atleast, _he did,_ up until the moment of that fateful accident.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Frenzy

 

 

 

Jasper could remember only _one_ , singular time in her life when she had been as equally terrified with the threat of loosing someone. When her father got ill, of course. But now, it wasn't remotely like when they got the news of that, confirming his eventual incline to shuffle off his mortal coil. They had to go through the torture, as a family, of watching him fade away.

Accidents left little room for people to fade away. 

Daryl had said on the phone ' _Jones. Now._ Listen. t _here's been a terrible accident._ ' 

_Five little words_

Those five words that robbed her instantly of all reasonable thought. And put such _fear_ into her heart she'd literally frozen on the spot. Prickling horror stabbing at her every pore. She gabbled an answer. Feeling her hysteria mount. _Why. Where. When. What. How. How bad. Which hospital._ Her mind leaps from thought to thought like a hopping cricket. She wants to move. To sprint for her coat, her bag, and her keys. But at the same time, her brain jumbles and blurs. And one thought cannot take hold when the next comes in and pushes in front, forcing it out.

She stands there. Listening to what Daryl was drawling down the phone to her in that dulcet, calming, baritone drawl of his.

She wasn't used to him sounding so _grave_. She was used to him larking about, mumbling about his forthright opinions in music, poplar trees, familial advice, or chiding his baby brother about when he'd hurry and seal the deal on marrying her at last. Daryl was the pillar of wisdom and wit to her, and to her Thomas. He was a calming character. His rough, rugged smile, carefree, usually auburn stubbled, and carved face, made him a pleasurable, cherished comfort to all who knew him.

Now, carefree, calming Daryl sounded like a big brother in fearful, mortal distress. And she'd _never_ have the privilege to un-hear that _woe and terror_ in his voice.

' _Hospital. Chelsea and Westminster. Urgent. Hurry. Get here as soon as you can. Calm down... It's alright.... I'm on my way too. Millie's at home. Get there. Jones. Ok. We need to get there.'_ That was the headlines, and now Jasper had to try and kick herself into action, and put away that damning fear that was starting to _drown_ her internally. Lexie, one of the two absolute darlings, and die-hard lesbians who own and work in the bookshop with her. Peers worriedly over at her, from the counter. Mid-way through serving a customer before frowning, and looking concerned at her expression.

" _Jas?_ Everything _alright?"_ Lex asks, skirting round the counter, and striding to get to her friend. Who was clearly not alright.

Jasper is _barely_ able to stammer the words. Tom. Hospital. _Road Accident._

 _Thank god for the woman_. She nods. Understanding instantly. And her rationality kicks in. She stubbornly steers the unstable woman to the staff room, out the back. Sharply informing Joan to take the till. Jasper is shaking now. She can feel it. She feels like ice. And her trembling mind is taking over her body. As that too starts to shake and shiver. _It was shock_. Lex could tell she was going into shock. Her breathing was tight and then too uncatchable. Her pulse drummed in her ears, like rain on a tin roof. 

She bundles Jasper into her tiny, rusty Renault. Who had finally come down to the real world and gives her directions. Lex tries her _utmost_ best to weave through London traffic on a Friday evening. Cursing out the window like a sailor where it was due if anyone _dared to get in her way_. She keeps telling Jas to breathe. ' _Just don't think about it too much. And breathe. Don't dwell honey. Let's just get there first. Ok?'_

After what feels like a dreadfully long eternity, the rusty, tiny little car - _with nothing but the paint holding it together_ \- being driven at g-force, neck breaking, speed by a cursing, impossibly irate, lesbian, swings round the large car park and up, diagonally, into a disabled space, just out front of the hospital doors.

Jas' stomach was in her ears. And she felt absolutely _sick_ as she climbed out the car. Lex told her she'd park, properly, and then come find her. Jasper nods, but by the time she does, she was already sprinting for the doors. She manages to stab Daryl's number into her phone again. And with a shaking hand, and sweating brow, she lifts the phone to her ear as she blunders through the hospital foyer, past the tacky newspaper shop display of sad looking flowers, and the the reception desk lost in amongst crowds of empty wheelchairs.

Everything is foggy to her. Everything doesn't make sense anymore. Her usually reliable brain was absolute mush and she grows more and more frantic hearing each dial tone ring, _on and on._ Desperate for Daryl to pick up. And when he does, he _barks_ seven sharp words at her.

' _Trauma ward._ He's in the trauma ward.'

She isn't sure she hangs up. She lets her phone hand dangle to her side as she runs to the nearest map. Her scarf sailing, her hair flying out behind her. She pants, studying the map that squiggled as she tried to read it through her oncoming tears. _The fifth floor._ She staggers to the lifts and jabs into the button, nearly breaking her finger. She steps back and frantically watches it flounder, the display telling her it was near the eighth floor.

She didn't have the time, nor the patience to wait for it. She bolts to the stairs and takes each of them three at a time, she darts out of people on their way down. She was sure she'd twisted her ankle, and her throat scrapes dryly and her lungs are starved, with the inadequate intake of breath she took in sprinting up the stairs so fast, stars swirled in her eyes when by the time she finally got the the fifth floor. Head pounding. Heart stomping. Grief thickening sluggishly like acid in her throat. She rams through the ward doors and throws her body at the mercy of the nearest nurses desk. Startling the people sat behind it, _she was sure._

When she speaks, she almost doesn't recognise the hysterical, strained husk of her emotionally compromised voice. She gabbled something about, _an accident. A man. A tall one. Six foot. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Thomas. Thomas Wickers. Capricorn. She was family. Nearly. Well. She was his girlfriend. Had been since 1994. Was he here? She needed to see him. She had to know what had happened to him. What was he accident? Where was it? Was he alive?_

In the meantime her inner monologue bellowed; _Help me. Please. Dear god help me._ _Don't let him die. Anything in the entire goddamn would but her Thomas dying in something as stupid as an accident._

The nurse nods calmly. Blinking and nodding, and soothing the panicked woman. Hushing her, and trying to get a word in. Slowly, she begins to explain;

"He's in surgery at the minute. He won't be _out yet._ My love. But the rest of his family are waiting down the corridor if you want to go join them. He was involved in _a major accident."_

"What _kind_ of accident?" She blabbers before her lips could stop the outright demands of her stubborn, frenzied brain.

"I _can't_ tell you. Miss. Now _please_. Go and take a seat in the waiting area and we'll find you when we have _more news.._ " The nurse tells her calmly and firmly. Levelling her hard eye contact to further enforce the brevity and clarity of her order.

Panting still, red cheeked and clammy from the climb up the stairs and the force of the news. Jasper staggers back from the desk, and looks down the long, square tunnel of the sickly green, walled ward, and the reflective, speckled, grey lino floor which stretched out before her.

Broken up by double doors pulled open. Nurses and doctors milling around. She could see a patient in a depressing blue paper gown, on a drip, gliding jerkily around on wobbly legs. She could see some being steered in wheelchairs. Air Masks clamped like translucent leeches onto their faces. Sat there looking pale, gaunt and lifeless. Sapped of energy and health. The severity of the strip lights overhead makes everything garishly bright. Casting a fake, white impression of daylight onto everything. Which made the time on there seem _endless_. It was as if this place was a void where time got swallowed up. Everything looked the same. Both night and day. Indistinguishable in this labyrinthine maze of institutionalised, clinical convalescence.

She heads down the depressing stretch of the ward. Hearing the awful, symphony of healing and modern medicine ricochet around her. The mechanical, beeping monotony of drip stands. The slow wheeze and drag of life support machines. That odd, _awful_ scent of bad, uncomforting food mingling with the industrial bleach cleaner used on the floors, makes he _r sick to her stomach._ Combine that with the stuffy, sterile ventilation that chokes her. Between them, and her paranoia, it means she can _scarce breathe_. Her stomach tied in tight, squeezing knots. 

She passes four bed bays, laden with that some spaces that were filled. Some with chatter of relatives sat dutifully by bedsides. Some were taken, but silent with a sleeping occupant within. Some coughed. Some were wired to machines that sat like fat, ugly, robotic gargoyles watching silently down over them. Stuffed with drains and pipes, and wires, needles, ports and tubes. Almost like the machines had _invaded_ , swarmed across them, and there was little left below of the _person_ that they had once been.

She carries on. Soldiering through the airless, disinfected atmosphere that was beginning to both give her a headache, and at the sane time, make her brain spin wildly like a sickening spinning top. She sees the end of the corridor as it veers off to the right, and her heart beats a little faster and stronger. Seeing the brawny, tall, fighter of a figure that belonged to Daryl Wickers. Sat, hunched like a man in torment, on those loveless, plastic chairs that all infirmaries had. The types of ones that didn't _naturally_ cradle the shape of _anyone's body._ His elbows were braced on his open knees, his head facing the floor, and his hands linked together grabbing onto the back of his neck.

She hurried towards him, able to see better now the salt and pepper hued swirl of his thick hair. His tattered, frayed, grass stained jeans with holes in the knees. Those staple taupe timberland boots on his feet, and his companies forest green fleece on his bulky torso. His feet were twitching and tapping. And he looked about as _restless_ as _she felt_  Which was reassuring to know. She gabbled his name as she draws closer. And his head snaps up so fast she's surprised he doesn't retain whiplash. Those crows feet lined eyes, exactly like Thomas's, take her in and as always. He had three day stubble on his carved chin and cheeks.

" _Thank fuck_ your here, _Jones_." He exclaims when she gets close. He stands, leaping to his full height and clasps her into a bear hug. She feels the fabric of his soft, worn fleece cushion under her palms as she returns the hug. She only came to below his shoulder. He smelled like he _looked_. Reeking of tree bark, washing powder and the ruddy, earthen, muddiness of his outdoor work.

She pulls away. Barely able to get words out.

"Do you know _what's happened?_ Or _how_ he is? I _don't_ know what's going on. I don't _know_ anything. Daryl. I'm going out of my _bloody freaking mind..."_ She cries to him. He clutches her hand. He had strong, wide and rough, calloused palms. But his grip gave her comfort. He takes a deep breath as he related to unload all he knew.

"They said he was involved in a traffic accident. He was crossing the road apparently. And he stepped out into the path of a van. It was going too fast. Slammed on the breaks. But _still_ managed to hit him..." He told.

That made her resolve burst. _She shattered._ She clamped a hand over her mouth as she gasped aloud and made an _unintentional_ moaning sound of _pain_. Tears dribbled over her hand. He hugged her close. Trying to console her.

"... The nurses said the ambulance crew on scene told them that he'd hit his head _pretty bloody hard_ falling back. Caused a _major_ injury to his upper body. He might have broken a bone or two in the shoulder or arm, but he wasn't hurt _below_ the waist." He says slowly. "And _that's all_ I know. I've been sat here _going mad_ ever since they told me." He informed her.

She pulled away, drying her eyes as they both moved to the seats that lined the wall behind him. Jasper only realised she was still trembling when she finally sat still.

"The nurse at the front desk said he was in surgery. But that it _could_ be a while..." She adds in a rasp. Rubbing her red raw eyes with a knuckle.

"I've phoned... _Everyone_. Mum. Dad. Millie's at evening pre-natal classes with a friend. But she's _on her way now_. I phoned your mother, I got through to her, and I tried your sister, when I got here but _no luck._.." He counted off.

Jasper blinked. Chiding herself. She'd completely forgotten to make any calls to anyone.

"She and Ian are on holiday in Italy. They won't be back until _next_ week." She tells him morosely. In the smallest, quietest tone he had ever heard her speak in.

"You mother offered to come. But I said we should probably wait..." He eludes. "Atleast to _wait..._ _until...."_

"Do you think he'll be.... _ok?_ " Jas asks him with innocent, reaching hope. Daryl looked over at her. _Silently_.

"They said he had a, _big_ , hit to the head. Jones. He was _relatively_ unscathed save for that. So. _I don't know. I'm sorry._ I want too, but I can't, give you any sort of _line_ to hang onto." He tells her softly. Jas nods. Exhaling a breath she didn't realise she'd been keeping in.

"As _horrible_ as it is _waiting_. That's _all_ we can do right now." He tells wisely.

Jas reaches over and squeezes his hand right. Letting him know she was sorry for asking that of him. She turned to him them. With tear streaked cheeks. And nodded as she chewed the inside of her lip.

"You're _such a good_ big brother. To him. And _to me. You know that, Darrie?"_ She asks him. Sniffling. Her voice wobbling unsteadily.

He snorts in almost hi numerous disbelief. "I don't _feel_ like a very good brother at the minute. I feel _helpless. Sat here. Toiling._ When he's... _Somewhere_... Being... _God knows what..."_ He choked. And that was the _first time,_ she had ever seen Daryl Wickers, unshakable, un-flappable, mountain of a man, _cry_  in front of her. She rubbed his back as he sobbed into his hands. 

They both stared emptily into the distance. Transfixed on _nothing_ in particular. But not before far too long. After a couple of awful more hours and two styrofoam cups of tepid, milky beige stuff that was not even close to resembling tea. A doctor. Tall, grey of hair, and wrinkled of face, dressed in teal scrubs, lurched towards them both. His surgery mask around his neck like a wreath. 

Both Jasper and Daryl's hearts were stone cold, grey, at their feet as they watched his face. If he shook his head, If he so much as began with the words, _"I'm so terribly sorry..."_ Then Jasper knew she'd just break down, curl up on this chair like a dying leaf and _waste away. But._ Thank heavens. He doesn't...

"Are you relatives of Mr Wickers?"

He asks them in his cut glass English. They both bod like bobble head dolls. His voice was haughty, lording, but reassuring somehow. _In some odd way_. Both her and Daryl leap to their feet and sway a little closer. He introduced himself as Doctor Johnson. A brain surgeon. They shook his hand out of politesse. But really. They just _had t_ o know about Tom...

"... He's just come out of surgery. And on the whole. It went as well as could be expected. We got him in plenty of time. _Now_. He is groggy. And has taken one _hell o_ f a blow to the skull. We're keeping a close eye on him for now. And the drugs we are administering will make him drowsy, plus coming round from a general anaesthetic will leave him rather _groggy_ and unresponsive for a few hours. But I very much want the both of you to be prepared for the worst... There is _every_ possibility when he wakes, that he will have severe brain trauma and possibly even _memory loss._ But. Having said that. _He's a lucky chap._ Most wouldn't be alive after going through his ordeal. He's _very lucky indeed_." He informs them In a doctors strict warning.

Jasper didn't know whether cry or laugh. Daryl seemed unable to speak. So she pipes up in his stead.

"Is it _definite_ he will have brain damage?" She enquires.

"I'm afraid I simply _can't_ say more until he wakes. Miss. But. _For now_. Take solace in the fact he has survived a very risky brain operation. And has come through it fighting. And with only a broken collarbone, four fractured ribs, and a broken arm to boot." He tells them. Nodding.

Before they thank him. _Wholeheartedly._ And he then he slips away. Off back down the ward.

Jasper finally let her chest sag free of the air she'd been suppressing in her lungs. The torture of waiting was over. But the worst part of the accident - unbeknownst to her - was yet to rear it's _Ugly, horrible, head._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Torment

 

What _was there to be done_ , when _waiting_ for someone to return from life altering surgery?

A nurse came and moved them from the chairs on the ward, showing the two of them into a depressing, stale blue waiting room, cordoned off from the main ward by a wall of windows. There sat an unhappy bunch of plastic flowers, drooping, on the only coffee table. The wimpy, faded, fake things were the _only_ spec of bright colour in the otherwise dull room. Everything else was the same shade of ailing blue. The floors, the walls, ceiling tiles, and the dark, coffee spattered carpet. The dizzying pools of light that came from the window was that sickly yellowish-orange tinge that came from street lights down on the roads below, making the tainted room seem all the more poorly.

She didn’t know what to do with herself. There was the canteen, for both staff and patients. But the thought of food only makes Jasper want to _wretch up her innards._ A TV room, conveniently located just down the hall to help pass the time, but the thought of sitting on some unbearably, worn, lumpy ancient sofa in a room that reeked of burnt toast and instant coffee, trying to forcibly involve her busy, sad brain into watching some tawdry, late night, trash, telly, somehow seems _callous_.

She had a book, in her bag. But _she knows_ she couldn’t lose herself in it, or focus on it as she would normally enjoy. _And it was Fitzgerald, too. This Side of Paradise, it was one of Tom’s favourites._ That thought makes the pit of her, _down to her very core_ , ache with painful sadness when she realised it.

Theres nothing else she can really do. She didn’t knit _(not yet she doesn’t anyway)_ she wasn’t a sodoku girl, and she hated the thought of listening to music, and surfing through her phone – it would be the ultimate height of twenty first century rudeness. Though music or books usually fulfilled her, _nothing right now It seems_ , would bring _her joy_.

So, she sits. On the miserably uncomfortable, PVC, chair, _doing nothing_ , apart from drinking god awful cup after paper cup of tea that Daryl keeps on insisting, and pressing into her hands. She nibbles daintily on the squashed, mangled cereal bar that he digs out from the depths of his pocket. She takes two or three bites before it turns to sickly, goey mush in her mouth and sticks her teeth together. She bins the rest of it and the cloying aftertaste sits sourly in on her tongue.

She doesn’t know _what_ keeps her occupied, her racing thoughts seem to calm down long enough for her to slump into the seats. And before she knows it, as the late night turns later, she finds herself sagging onto Daryl’s fleecy, broad shoulder as she sleeps, fitfully, shallowly, drifting in and out from the blackness behind her own eyelids.

She must have dosed off for a while, because when she woke, her head was cushioned on her balled up scarf, with Daryl’s fleece draped over her shoulders. Her knees tucked up to her chest. She had a rude awakening, her heart rattled in her chest and her body jolted as in her dreams taunted her horridly, she heard the _thud_ of a body hitting the pavement, _screeching tyres_ , and the _blare_ of a car horn.

Her eyes snap open, and she sits _bolt upright_. Her cheek warm where it had rested, and her throat scratchy from the meagre amount of sleep. Her eyes felt two tonne’s heavy and she knows she won’t so easily drop off again this time.

She sits and wiped a hand down her face, seeing she was the only one in the dank, sickeningly yellow lit room. But looking out of the cloth blinds, she can see Daryl, in his red checked lumberjack shirt, talking to Tom’s parents. Stood looking teary eyed as Daryl moved his hands, gesturing and explaining morosely what the Doctor had told them. She unfolded her aching knees from the chair they were curled up on. She staggers to the door, feeling the fuzzy, burring woolliness of her tongue from her nap, clog her mouth.

She pushes the door open, and steps out, into that clinical, bleached, airless ward once more. Valerie and Reginald Wickers both looked terribly empathetic when they saw her. Val swooped over and collapsed Jasper into a hug as Reg fought not to cry at the sight of his wife embracing their dear sons girlfriend.

As Tom's mother clasped her close, Jas tried not to let tears dribble from her eyes as Valeries comforting, chanel musk wafted over her. She had her sons blue eyes, set in her gorgeous, aged face. Her hair was silvery grey and always styled in a chic, sleek, flicky ended bob that was straight out of the 1960’s. She wore M&S cashmere cardigans, and her favourite colour was plum. She was a short, but bodacious woman. Who smelt like peonies, honeysuckle, and chanel. She had a smile that could calm anyone down, and Tom definitely got his thin-lips, and dreamy model’s smile, from her too.

Her husband, Reg, was obviously where the Wicker boys got both their _height_ from. He was a towering, strapping example of a man. He had thick, thick, curls, of charocal hair and the warmest brown eyes that could melt metal. He always wore his specs dangling off the bridge of his nose, and his greying stubble made his face and his dark under-eyes, lined with worry, age him by twenty years. Of course, in his middle age, his knees and joints werent what they used to be, and as he was a professor, he had that look of studious reflection about him, in the jackets he wore with suede elbow patches, his red reading glasses, and his cheery bow ties. Usually neat as a pin. This evening, the orderly, caring Professor Wickers looked rumpled and _mussed_. His eyes hooded and in pain. His shirt untucked, his bow tie was loose, as if he’d tugged at it many times, and his hair was dishevelled.

“Oh, _Jassie._ ” Valerie cries. Those sky hued eyes raining when they pull away. Jas pressed a clean kleenex into her hand from her pocket. They had obviously just heard what had happened. Whereas she had been toiling and writhing in agony for hours on the sidelines, waiting for him to come out of recovery, and onto the ward.

Just as she could see the difference in them, tonight, they could see it plain as day on her too. Her eyes were red raw, and she looked small, frail and deathly gaunt in the harsh light of the ward.

 _It was unforgiving. And it was cruel_. It made _all of them_ see each other as they _truly_ were. _Scared._

Reg steps forwards and swallows Jaspers small form into a demure bear hug in his arms. Getting the tang of his inkpen and peppermints from the packet of trebor mints she knew habitually _lived_ in his tweed, jacket, breast pocket. For a man so tall and towering, he hugged her as delicately, as if she was made of _glass_ , liable to _shatter_ at the _merest touch_.

“How was _your journey_ up? Not _too busy?”_ She asked idly. Not knowing what else to say to them. Valerie dabbed her eyes as Daryl rubbed her back and gave her a one armed hug. Reg answered Jasper.

“We came straight here _the minute_ we got Daryl’s message. Val got it first, she came from home, to the University to fetch me. I walked right out in the middle of my medieval literature lecture on Chaucer. Do you know, I don’t think I _even stopped_ the slideshow…I just, _left._ We got in the car and just drove like _maniacs_ to get here. I won’t be surprised if theres a speeding ticket _or two_ coming my way in the post..” He explains with bitter humour. Chuckling at the irony of such an odd thing.

Jasper makes a face that told them she was barely holding herself together as she folded her arms across herself. And looks tearfully from Reg to Valerie. Daryl _hated_ to see her _like this._ She was usually all smiles and that goofy, sparky sense of optimism that could have kept the titanic afloat.

“Do they know when we are able to _see him_ , Jasper?” Reg asks quietly. Jasper idly itches her elbow, shifting and fidgeting as she stood there.

“ _Um_ , The, _uh,_ nurse said she’d come and get us when he’s back on the ward…” She nods. Trying to hold herself strong. To make herself seem more outwardly together than she felt. _Inside, she felt like she was rotting away._

“Mum, Dad, why don’t you guys _come and sit down_ , and we _can… well.....God knows_. _“_ Daryl trailed off. None of them could _really do anything._ They all trudged, with Jas opening the door for them, into the miserable little blue room, and all took a seat on the cold, unwelcoming chairs that weren’t the right shape to suit or cradle _anyones_ ass.

They each take a seat, and then after the small talk dissolves away, the _dreadful_ silence sets in. Jas got texts from both her mother, and her sister. Offering condolence, and Hattie offered her both hers and Ian’s support, saying the next flight they could catch back was on Monday evening. And Jaspers mother, said that she was stuck on the nightshift, but as soon as someone could relieve her of it, she would be on the _first_ train to get there for her. Jasper had told them both not to worry, and just _get here safely_ , _whenever_ was possible. Daryl had said Millie was on her way from her pregnancy support group.

Jasper stared off into space, shutting her phone, and slipping it back into her bag. Sighing. Holding her head braced on one elbow as she listened to the muffled sounds of pattering footsteps and the ensemble of various hospital commotion. The clamour of medicine at work. The squeak of bed wheels as they were pushed along, the bells and alerts on drips and machines breaching the dull, thick, silence. The only thing that snaps them all out of their misery is when they can all hear a pair of feet grow louder, and the click of the door, widening, letting the din grow louder for a moment. They all come  _instantly_ to attention, seeing the same nurse from earlier at the desk, look caringly at all of them.

“He’s out of recovery now. Would _one_ of you like to come and see him? We’re just putting him in a private room…” She tells them all.

Jas’s heart richochets like a bowling ball in a tin can around her chest. Her heart leaps up her throat, strangling her, and she is the first one to shoot to her feet. She glances, gaping mouthed at Reg and Valerie. They were his parents, he was their son, _their darling boy._ If anyone got to see him first, it _should be them._ But Valerie looks across to Reg, who holds her hand, and they look at Jasper. Silently agreeing. 

“Go and _see him,_ Jasper, darling. Put your mind at rest. He’d want _you_ to be the first.” Reg tell’s her with certainty.

 _It was the right thing to do_. _He would always have two parents_. But _only one_ love of _his life._

She nods, before she leans and gives them both, each, a kiss on the cheek for that. Tears now  fogging her eyes as she moves for the door, her body feeling grey, cold, heavy, dread for the first time _all day_. The worst she had ever seen Thomas was with a bad cold when she had to nurse him, make him soup, and bring him a cold flannel every now and then. Whatever figure or horrors were awaiting to be seen in that hospital bed, it was still _her Thomas._ Daryl stands as she passes him. Moving with the intent to come along too.

“ _One person_ would _be best_ for now, Sir…” She warns him.

Daryl takes a deep breath, but he would _not desist._ He had been waiting here now, sober, and tormented, for _eight_  hellish hours. He was not letting them bar him from his brother. He spoke, reverently, and compellingly.

“With all respect, _Hang best for now dear._ He is _my_ baby brother and I’ve been watching out for him since he was _born_. And I’ve _protected_ him from every damn thing since the day he could _crawl._ You _try and stop me_ …” He speaks gently, nodding. Tears in his eyes.

Valerie slumps onto her Husbands shoulder, sobbing, at hearing her eldest say that. The Nurse gently nods, and Daryl squeezes Jas’s hand as they follow the nurse, back along the stuffy heat of the ward, along the corridoor, and off down past the desk, opposite of which, they came to a small, square room, with just enough space for the bed, opposite the large, blinded window that looked out onto the streets below, the same yellow street light tinge as the waiting room, except here, the blind that was drawn sliced it into strips that divided up the room. Striping across the familiar tall figure, resting back, perfectly still in the bed.

Jasper dreaded every step she took closer and closer to get to him. She swallowed down her tears and the sour grief that bunged up her throat. The Nurse opened the door slowly, they shuffled inside, and she shut it behind them, leaving them three alone. They were both transfixed by the small, pale, lifeless body in the bed that was _shades away_ from their vibrant, loving, thoroughly animated, active Thomas, _the one they both knew and adored._

There was no noise save for the repetitive drone of the drip, needles and drains daggered under white plasters into the backs of both his hands. His right arm, toned, pale muscle that it was, was folded across his bare chest in a blue sling. He had primary coloured stickers with wires, monitering his heartbeat, suckered to his pale chest, which gently rose and fell.

Both she and Daryl _just stood_ there, watching it swell and dip, his breathing was silent as the grave. The beeping they could hear was the incessant drone of the drip counter as it slowly fed him some clear solution through the plastic tube attatched to his hand. The bag strung up by the bedside, on the tall, silver, T-shaped drip stand. There was a fat bag of blood sagging up there too, slowly being goaded into his ailing, fragmented body.

Blue, scratchy woven blankets and white hospital sheets were tucked up to his ribs, and his perfect eyes were shut, his handsome face a picture of rest, tilted towards the ceiling. A clear tube was rested across his face, just under his nose to feed him oxygen. Daryl stayed by the door, just taking this sight in. It was one that was scored onto his brain for life.

Jasper stepped closer, her eyes drifting up her _perfect man. Her perfect man who_ _now lay bruised, scarred and broken_.

She knew what was making Daryl _so hesistant_ and why he had stayed, rooted to his spot by the door. He wasn’t _prepared_ to see him _in such a state._ Jasper knew It was because of the garish, violently red, angry wound that sat to the right side of his head. The scar that began on his temple, and ran a jagged track up and over the side, that had been shaved right to the skull, so now only small, tawny fuzz remained of the thick, curls of dark hair that had once sat there.

 _Now,_ there _was only_ the trail of a lurid, crimson scar marring his snowy white cranium. The right side of his face was swelled a little too, above his eyebrow, it was puffy, bruised a deep purple, with small cuts all over his cheekbone and above his violet coloured, closed eyelid. She could see a split sat on his perfect, kissable lips too. Which rested in a straight line. And he was wearing a neck brace, a white collar keeping his head high above his shoulders.

There were cuts and scrapes all over him. Etched onto his neck, and bleeding bruises on his knuckles and hands. Jasper perched herself on the bed, which sagged, as she sat gingerly on his left side. She reached out for his limp, long fingered hand. Which was only slightly warm to the touch, she slipped her fingers through his. And bit her lip, her eyes flitting all over him.

“ _Oh,_ my darling man. _What happened to you?”_ She whispers as two tears drip from her eyes. Rubbing her thumb over his knuckles, careful not to hurt him.

She let her tears come. Now she had seen him. _So damaged and beaten._ Her mind did stop imagining the worst. But finally seeing the reality was as _harrowing_ as she’d expected it to be. She wipes her tears away, before she leaned up over him, and softly, pressed _the gentlest kiss_ to his good cheek. The left one, that wasn’t all cut up and shredded.

He still smelled a little like _her Thomas._ That cologne she watched him put on every morning, after the scented shaving balm he used to slap on his cheeks. She could detect the staple scent of that too. But it was overided by the sterility of crisp hospital sheets and the clinical smell of dinsinfectant they probably had to use on his wounds. She sits back by his thigh, grabbing his hand again, feeling his muscles twitch slightly.

“Do you think he can _hear us?”_ She asks Daryl. Not turning around. Still looking at him. Unable to let her eyes leave him. The door had opened silently behind them, and the nurse who was looking after him had poked her head in. Coming to take hourly observations. She smiles at Jasper’s questions. And speaks, seeing she had startled the woman who turned round to face her from the bed.

“He can _hear you fine_ , sweetheart. Just all the meds we have him under will have _knocked him for six._ He’ll sleep like the dead for now, but he’ll wake in the next couple of hours. Tall, strapping lad like him. _Won’t be long now...”_

The nurse assures her gently. Though she spoke quietly, her voice was an upbeat, Irish brogue. She had short, curled coils of carroty hair and a flabby, chin and cheeks. But her eyes were kind, and she had that no-nonsense matrons look about her. She was middle aged, and wore her curvaceous weight well.

“ _Thankyou_.” Jasper smiled at her. She saw Daryl had worked up the strength to move to the end of the bed. The nurse smiled at her, before fiddling idly with the drip, and writing something down on her chart. “Maggie.” She spoke, as she wrote something on another sheet of paper. Before turning back to Jasper, and smiling, clicking her pen and putting it back in her pocket. “I’ll be Mr. Wickers’ nurse for _this_ night shift…” She smiles.

“Jasper, I’m _his girlfriend_ , this is his _big_ brother, Daryl.” She introduced to the kind woman. Who nodded sharply, before offering them a smile and some advice as she walked back across to the door.

“I’ll be back again in a hour. _Until then, don’t worry_ about him. He’s the strength of _an ox, darling_ , he came sailing through the surgery. _He’s a lucky lad_. Don’t fret.”

She winked politely, before she slid out the door, the atmosphere lifted by her sunniness and her merry promise. Jasper looked over her shoulder, to see that Daryl had finally worked up the courage to come closer, He settled into the chair that he pulled close to be by Thomas’s right side, fidgeting around in it to get comfortable, leaning close to his baby brother. His eyes fretfully looking at the big, garish scar sliced into his head. He wets his lips, before he begins to speak.

“Listen to me, _you sod_. How dare you do _such a stupid_ thing like that, and walk out into oncoming traffic. _How dopey are you, Wickers?_ Hope you know what _you’ve put us all through today_ …… When you wake up, you better be prepared for _the bloody big hug_ I’m going to jolly well give _to squeeze the very stuffing_ out of you…. _Your Jasper’s_ _here too_. _Wild dogs couldn’t keep her from your side._ She’s been frantic out of her head for you, mate. Hope you know that…. _We all have_ ……Mum and Dad are here too. Dad walked out _on one of his beloved Chaucer_  lecture's for you. _Ok?_ So _how’s that_ for being favourite _son, ey?_ They claim they _don’t_ have a _favoruite._ But I think _that’s proof if ever proof were needed._ By the way, just a heads up, you’ve got a _proper good scar_ on that _big, brainy, noggin_ of yours…. That’ll impress the birds, _they love a_ good scar. Or so I’m told. Then again… maybe you should settle with this, mad, doc wearing, Lady Day enthusiast, _maniac, woman_ , who adores every last irritating inch of you. Even when you _don’t propose_ to her and put _her out_ of her _misery_ …” He smiles, looking at his sibling’s face. Jasper smiled.

Jasper watched his face fall. He looked serious, and her reached over and clasped Thomas’s hand along with Jas’s.

“Put us out of our misery ey? Wickers. Come back to us soon, and give us all that sunny, cheery smile we love and adore….. Be alright, _Tomcat._ Because if you aren’t… I don’t know _how the bloody hell_ we’ll all go on…” Daryl tells him straight.

Before he peers over at jasper once more. tears burst from the both of them, and they sob poignantly as Jasper speaks.

“Better _do what_ your brother _says, Tom_ ….” She cries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Red Record Players

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is just short, I'll be adding another bit on the end tomorrow....

 

 

 

Jasper, being a Jones amongst Wicker’s, stepped outside to give Tom’s parents, Daryl and Millie, their time in the hospital room alone with him. She pulled the door closed behind her, and watched through the window as Val took Tom's good hand, his father stood behind her as she sat on the bed, like Japser had done. And round the other side of the bed, stood Daryl and Millie, he had one arm around his heavily expectant wife who’d only _just_ arrived.

She had common ground with Millie. They were both _outsiders_ to the family, even though she _was_ Daryl's _wife._  They shared a bond, In both knowingly shackling themselves to the pair of fully gown _man-children they so loved_. Picking up the slack after their _hopeless_ significant others. Often they'd met for a glass of wine and a long chat. As they were both strong-minded, girls attached to the faithful, _infuriatingly_ wonderful,  _Wicker boys._  

Millie was the _kindest_ , most _capable_ and _sociable_ person. She ran her own floristry, set it up from scratch when she left school, and was _thoroughly_ homely. She baked, she sewed, she cooked. She had long, chestnut curls and doe eyes, and that kind of italian, mediterranean seductive beauty. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for other people, she hemmed curtains for the neighbours if they couldn't themselves. She gave voluntary evening classes in flower arranging, baked cakes for the local church, and there was _no one, on planet earth_ , better placed or more _able_ to be a more brilliant mother than her. She was a _pillar_ of warmth and organisation for Daryl’s messy, uncoordinated clumsiness. A pillar without which, he _would not stand._  

Jasper folded her arms across herself, looking into the room before her. Watching them all acclimate themselves to Thomas’s battered, and broken body. As he lay sleeping, in that box room, stuffed with tubes and needles, with wires stuck to every last inch of him. The sounds of his heavy breathing, and the beep of the heart moniter was the soundtrack to all their shared pain. She watched Daryl lovingly kiss his wifes head as she shed tears in seeing that happy, boundless, active, golden boy, _their Tomcat_ , silent, and still. Val was still clutching her sons hand, and Reg was rubbing her shoulders soothingly as, from behind, Jasper saw her body shake and jerk as she sobbed. She sighed, stood outside the room. Looking in, like she was watching some _spectacle_ at the zoo, or observing a _goldfish bowl_ , Only it seemed as cruel as _all those things_.

This was the cruel unpredictability of life, just when everything was fine. That morning, she had made them toast and tea for breakfast before he slipped out the door for work, and he had kissed her before he left, smilling that sunny smile at her. He looked virtually, _edible_ , in that pressed white shirt stretched snug to his strong torso, with those crotch hugging grey trousers that were, in her opinion, _NSFW_ on his crickets legs. She worried sometimes about him flaunting his virility around the office, she was sure a couple of interns and secretaries were tempted to try and strike up a flirtation. But this was _her Thomas. The most faithful creature in all of existence._ Although, admittedly, they weren't married. He always found ways of reminding her he was a one-woman kind of man. Her picture sat on his desk. Their holiday pictures flagged the walls of his office. And she was his phone background. He took time and effort to remind her of the place she held in his heart. Sometimes he left work for hours, no matter how busy and urgent the work on his desk, just to go and have a long lunch with her. Because he couldn't stand waiting til he got home that evening before seeing her again. He sent flowers. With cards telling her he was thinking if her. _He was the most devoted man she knew_. He had also, that morning, as she had _just_ showered and was in her grey dressing gown, _hunted_ her down like a stalking animal, _pressed_ her against the kitchen counter, allowing her _no escape_ _(not that she’d desire it anyway)_ and kissed her hungrily in that _deep, dark_ way that took all her breath, his fingers seeking for more _pleasurable pastures up north_. Sliding his warm palm up her thigh, as that auburn stubble on his chin scraped down her neck, making her bite her lip, her smile giddy, shivering at the pleasantness of the sensation. His lips tasted like _salted butter_ from his breakfast. The scent of _her,_ he discovered, nuzzling into the crook of her neck, that freshly showered turkish rose showergel she used, drove him to _, absolute_ , distraction. He growls a moan into her kiss, before he pulls away and goes for his bag and his jacket, heading for the door as he was already late. But not able to resist, swooping back to kiss her, stretching over the counter, and in between kisses to those gorgeous lips of hers he adores, he mumbles how he wants to cook tonight, _or, try and cook_ , with good intentions, but when that goes tits up and burns to buggery beyond edibility, there was _always takeaway_. Then he beams, as he tells her her loves her, he fusses their dog, Gatsby, and then, after kissing her, _again_ , he skips on out the door, and off to work to begin his day. She’d never have imagined their day could end _like this._ _With the future ahead now looking so bleak, and tragic. It didn’t seem like her life,_ she noted sadly, _She should be curled up, at home, all cosy with him, halfway through a bottle of wine, eating takeout on the nest of cushions on the floor as they fought over what to watch._

But there seemed _little point_ to Jasper in wishing for things that _wouldn’t_ come true. She’d stoppped believing all that tripe about wishing wells, birthday candles, and pennies in fountains long ago when she was a kid. And her mother was no good at trying to act as the tooth fairy _either. That made it all the easier to give up her blind, childish faith on the matter. She didn't miss it._

It had happened now. The accident. And wasting time wishing for it not too, was only going to cause undue _pain_. But still, the mind has a way of wondering… All day, she sat around morosely waiting, toiling, and she just kept finding herself thinking…. _If he’d not reached for his phone….If he’d only just, crossed the road, twenty seconds later…. If only, If only, If only…_

_Nothing had ever caused the human mind such unecessary pain as the agonies surrounding the pitiful, fucking, phrase ‘If only’_

Doctor Johnson had come back earlier, when all the family were gathered, and had given them his diagnosis from Tom’s brain scan. He had noticed that there was some lapse in activity, after the damage. Which probably meant that when he woke up - though it could be soon he’d have to be very inactive for the next few weeks as his head healed - he would most likely have a _sufficient_  amount of memory loss.

Jasper had bit her lip. _Tom would hate being inactive…. He was always jogging at 4am. And off to the gym after when he had the time. She hopes. Idly. That he would still hate the order to be lazy...._ He had also mentioned Thomas would quite rapidly dip in and out of consciousness as the brain took its time in healing itself. All they could do was heal his more superficial wounds, and wait, and see how _heavy_ the toll of the internal wounds were. 

The scar, he'd explained, was a result of them having to _open his skull_ to let the hemorrhage he sustained in the trauma, bleed out rather than causing a clot in his brain. The other wounds he had sustained from impact with both the vehicle, and then the pavement. The brace on his neck was a precuation of whiplash. But could come off when he woke up more. The broken bones he’d collected would take a few weeks to knit back together too.

But in the mean time, Tom was _out_ of it, and they could only wait til he came around. _There wasn’t much else to be said apart from that_.

But that didn’t sway Jaspers _mind one bit_. She was staying, _right by his side,_ tonight. She didn’t care if he didn’t even know she was there. She wasn't leaving him _alone here._ To wake up. Confused. Scared, in pain, and alone in the dark, strange room. _Even if he didn't remember her face..._

There was a little foam cushioned bench next to the empty cupboard by his bed. That looked suitable. Passable enough to serve as her makeshift bed for the night.  _She was stubborn,_ she had set her mind to it. She _knows_ that Daryl would protest, _he’d_ want to be here instead, and would try gallantly to take her place. _Jasper would brook no opposition to her staying._

She could talk to Thomas, even if he _was_ or _wasn’t_ listening. Read him a book, or have his record player brought in. To hum out it's scratchy, ancient, crooning, melodies _softly_. Like the familiar comfort of a lullaby for him. _Just so he knows that someone who loves him was nearby. Guarding over him. Here. Watching him._

A blanket from home too, she thinks idly. For his feet and legs. Hospital bedding was so _loveless and unwelcoming._ And his favourite, faded, Henley t-shirt and pyjamas to keep him warm and cosy. The Henley _used_ to be white, but now was a grubby ivory from his relentlessly wearing it. It was fraying at the hem too, and there was a button missing, but that was always his preffered shirt for slumming around in. That would make her feel like she was doing something for him. _Even if it was something little._ Making this painful time eased a little, with comforts from home.

She’d had a text from Lex earlier, parking was particularly _nightmarish_. But her and Joan would be up to visit in the week. She’d come and poked her head round the door, just to pay her dues, she didn’t want to _overwhelm him_. She’d done a coffee run, and bought a carrier bag full of chocolate bars for them, and then said she would get out of their hair. She’d squeezed her Jasper into a hug, and spoke soothingly to her. Saying she could take _all the time_ off from the shop as they needed. She had been hesistant, but Lex had persisted. Bookshops in London were _a dime a dozen._  But they were _raking_ it in. They had regulars, wine and cheese book club, and an LGBTQ blind book date Evening. Having one less person, she'd said, wouldn’t harm them in _any way_ for a little while. _They were rolling in it._ Jasper had levelled her a look, and made the woman promise that when she said she _was ready_ to come back, that her and Joan would let her _without_ contestation. To that she agreed with a _wink_ and a _maybe_. Before a plethora of kisses and hugs, and she too was off, cranking that old rust-bucket renault into life again and sputtering her way home to Portabello on the dark, 2am London streets.

It had to have been almost _3 now_ , or somewhere past it, Jasper knew. Her body was starting to let her feel it. Her eyes were dense and impossible to keep open. Blurry from the long day, and her limbs were starting to feel weak. She was getting _near_ to exhuastion, but she wouldn’t let herself rest just yet.

The door opening behind her startles her a little more awake. She turns, summoning her remaining shreds of liveliness, and turns to see Daryl slipping out of the door to come and see her. He had that elder sibling face on, the one he _usually_ wore when he was thinking how best to look after everyone… _That was Daryl all over._

He was the boy at school who was everyones friend. From the popular crowd, to those who didn’t fit in. He befriended _them all,_ because he _would not stand_ for people loosing their humanity so far as to pick on people just cause they _were different_. He was the guy to help old ladies struggle home with their heavy shopping in the pouring rain, even when he had _no coat on._ And always put a penny in collection boxes, or gave the homeless the odd fiver whenever he passed them by. _Daryl helped people, that was his whole nature.._ And Jasper could see his _not_ being able to help his own baby brother _was weighing down on him like five tonnes of shame._

“I think I’ll take mum and dad to a _nearby_ hotel now… They’ve driven _a long way_. And she’s not saying it, but Millies feet are swollen and killing her. I know _they don’t want_ to go just yet. _No ones saying it_ , but they need too, they’re _all knackered_

 _“Ah._ they’re a _stubborn breed_ , those Wickers..” Jasper japed, smiling only a little.

"Anyway, they’ve got the car, I’ll go get them checked in, and Millie too. Then,  _I’ll come back here. I think I should stay the night with him. Just in case.._.” He tries to insist. Drawing up his action man plan. Jasper raised one brow in wry contest. 

She dug down into her pockets, and withdrew her keys, and pressed them into his confused palm. He frowned across at her. _These were her house keys._

“ _No Hotel_.” She orders. From the look on his face, she could tell she was about to get an _earful_ of complaint and resistance from him. He shook his head, towering over her, looking stern.

“Jasper. _No_ , we couldn’t… It’s _your home…”_

“… _Our_ home. And _I'll_ decide who goes under it's roof. Now you _listen_ _to me. Daryl Wickers._ We have two spare rooms, and fresh bedding in _each guest_ room. It's barely _even a twenty_ minutes drive from here. Parking round the corner, a mere _street_ away. There is a _fridge_ full of food, and it’s a lot nicer than _some grotty, expensive_ Premier Inn. _There's_....Netflix. Ice cream in the freezer. Beer in the small fridge…”

He glares at her still. She continued. “ _Wine in the rack? Red and white?_ ” She tried, seeing no shift from the glower. Before she speaks in a low way that instantly gained his attention.

“ _Full, huge, big_ bottle of extortionately expensive vodka in the drinks fridge _too_.” She swayed. Seeing he smiled at that. Accepting the keys as he pulled her into a bear hug. And kissed her tangled hair. When they pulled away, he scrutinised her for a long second.

“That's more like it. After the _day_ _I’ve had…_ ” He confesses tiredly. His eyes looking haunted by the puffy bags sat under them. Where the worry and stress of the day had now taken it’s potent toll.

“You’re sure it’d _be alright?”_ He asks. Jasper rolls her eyes. _God, he was such a Wickers_. _Treading on eggshells, just like Tom did in politesse._ “I’m sure. You’d _actually_ be _doing me_ a favour…” She hints coyly.

His eyes narrowed some more. “Gatsby needs feeding doesn’t he?” He asks. To which she nods shamefully. “Third cupboard from the right of the toaster…” She tells, rubbing his arm in a thanking way. He hugged her again. Showing her he was happy to do it.

“ _Alright_. You win with us staying at yours and Toms, but _I am winning_ on the promise of bringing some stuff back up here for you after the others get settled. I’ll get some of his clothes, and books, and a blanket maybe. I felt that thing covering him in there, its like sandpaper _. Oh,_ and never worry, Millie will know what to do with packing...All...your…. _ladies..things_.. I won’t go into that. She’ll probably try sending _you food_ aswell…” He warns.

“Not really hungry…” Jasper offers. Daryl nodded. “Yeah. _Try telling her_ that, I weighed two stone _less before_ I met her.” He grumped. Jasper smiled. Touching his arm again.

“You two were my _absolute godsends_ today. You _know that, don’t you?”_ She told. Daryl smiled wickedly. He shut his eyes and smiled wider. Nodding a little. “We _try_.” He offers humbly. Jasper kisses him on the cheek. His long stubble bristled against her lips. Daryl turns to go into the room, and collect all the various other Wickers from around Toms bedside.

“ _Oh, and uh,_ Record player. Bring his record player for me… and the stack of vinyls… _He’d want that_. Instead of that damned beeping all night long…” Jasper asks nicely. Before turning and looking at Tom's pale, sleeping figure through the big window. She watched that bare gods torso slowly going up and down as he rested.

 _“Lady Day?”_ He asks her with a cunning smile.

 _“Our_ favourite.. Especially ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’….” She admits shyly.

“He’s _so lucky_ to have you, _Jones_ …. He _knows that_ you know. _He loves you more than life itself_.”

He told her, as he stood by the door. Jasper looked at her feet and smiled. Daryl slipped in and she is left alone again. She looks through the window, watching her Tom. Hoping he still loved her when he woke up again. Because if not, she’s no idea how she’d bare it.

 

~

 


End file.
